TPACK science challenge

1. The content knowledge I am focusing on in this lesson is to fulfill a 3rd Grade standard in the Utah Core Curriculum that deals with the geography of Utah. Third grade science standard 5 states, "Students will understand the physical characteristics of Utah's wetlands, forests, and deserts and identify common organisms for each environment." This is the academic objective that was used to guide the TPACK lesson plan. Beneath that standard, we focused on one specific point of the curriculum that asked the students to "locate examples of areas that have characteristics of wetlands, forests, or deserts in Utah." (Objective 1c). This TPACK lesson plan provided students an opportunity to apply their knowledge of Utah's geography to create a small collection of photo examples using Google Earth. This lesson is intended to follow and expand upon a brief lesson about the characteristics of the landforms so that students know how to find the features they are looking for.

2. The pedagogy used in this lesson involved several good teaching practices. Allowing students to work in small groups gave students the chance to collaborate and build ideas with their peers. It is a good match for the content taught because students can share their understanding with each other, thus benefitting both students. It is also good for promoting the correct use of the technology used in this lesson because students can teach and learn from each other. Using this activity as an assessment tool is also a great pedagogical choice because a teacher can quickly assess the students' understanding of Utah's geography by the pictures they found to exemplify each geographical feature. Presenting the pictures to the class not only helps students develop their presentation skills, but also gives students extra exposure to the content taught.

3. The technology used in this lesson is the program Google Earth and simple screen capturing technology. Google Earth is a natural match to a lesson about geography content because it gives the students the feeling of exploring the world as they use Google Earth to find real-life pictures of geography either in their own local area or somewhere far across the world. This program allows students to see a window to places beyond their classroom walls. Google Earth is also a great match to the pedagogical aspect of group working because it is a great way for students to work together and they will naturally want to share and talk about the pictures and places they find with their peers. Depending on the classroom, limited resources may also require working in small groups at computers instead of individually. Screen capturing technology is vatal to the content and pedagogy involved in this lesson because it allows images to be captured and saved, so that they may later be presented to the class and referred to as examples.